A total of 34 offices, pubs, parks and museums are new to the event created by social media entrepreneur Rick DeVos in 2009.

Registration for ArtPrize 2012 artists, competing for total of $560,000 in prize money, begins 10 days from now on April 23 for the event that opens Sept. 19 in downtown Grand Rapids.

“Nearly 200 venues went online and used ArtPrize.org to create a profile for their space and begin the process of creating their own exhibition for the fourth annual event,” said Brian Burch, ArtPrize director of public relations.

ArtPrize 2012 will have seven Exhibition Centers, each with at least 25 works of art plus such amenities as merchandise, and registration for viewers who want to help select the 10 works that will share in prize money, including the first-place $200,000 prize.

New Exhibition Centers include the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and Kendall College of Art and Design, both of which participated as ArtPrize venues in the past.

New to the event this year are Showcase Venues, which will provide some amenities but not all that Exhibition Centers will. Cathedral Square and Women’s City Club, both Exhibition Centers last year, will participate as Showcase Venues in ArtPrize 2012.

Stepping up as a Showcase Venue is SiTE:LAB @ 54 Jefferson in the old Grand Rapids Public Museum Building at 54 Jefferson SE. SiTE:LAB participated as a venue last year in the former Junior Achievement Building at the corner of Fulton Street and Division Avenue.

Adjustments still are likely in the final figure of 195 registered venues. To participate in ArtPrize a venue must secure a relationship with at least one artist during Connections period, which also opens April 23 and continues through June 14.

Last year, 199 venues signed up to participate, but only 164 actually connected with artists to show work during ArtPrize 2011.

Looking ahead to ArtPrize 2012, the majority of registered venues are close to downtown among ArtPrize’s five neighborhoods.

Preliminary numbers show some 80 venues located in ArtPrize’s Center City Neighborhood and 49 in the Heartside Neighborhood to the south.

Some 28 are in the Hillside Neighborhood to the east, 13 in the Monroe/Belknap Neighborhood to the north, and 22 in the Westside Neighborhood.

ArtPrize 2011 had 164 venues showing work by 1,582 artists from 39 countries and 43 U.S. states. Some 300,000 to 400,000 people participated in the event that awarded a total of $498,000 in prize money including the $250,000 first prize to California artist Mia Tavonatti, a native of Iron Mountain now living in California, for her stained glass mosaic, “The Crucifixion.”

The second ArtPrize in 2010 was bigger with 192 venues showing work by 1,713 artists.

Whether this fall’s ArtPrize will surpass ArtPrize 2010 in size won’t be known for a while. Artist Registration as well as the Connections period to match artists with venues for both open on April 23.

Artist Registration continues through May 24. Connections ends two weeks later on June 14.